Asia

Is Durian’s Season now, some tips you may like to follow while choosing a king of fruit!

First, pick up a durian by using a towel cloth or a glove and give a gentle shake. If the sound is dull and subtle, this is just right. If it is knocking sound, the fruit is not ripe enough. It there is no sound; the fruit may be too ripe and taste bitterness (to some, bitterness is the best taste among).

In the early years when mangroves swamps and human skulls were covered long ago before the Thomas Raffles came.

Sea Gypsies – By courtesy of Tidal Fortunes

During the Raffles colony, Colonel Farquhar asked the Sea Gypsies who were the early communities, “Whose are all these skulls and dead bodies?” they replies, “They belongs to the men who were robbed at sea and slaughtered here.”

According to Munshi Abdullah wrote; there was a plague of rats in the river community, the size of rats were as huge as cats.

Colonel Farquhar rewarded 1 ‘wang’ for every rat been caught. Hence, thousands of rats brought in every morning. After 6 or 7 days, multitude of creatures were still can be founded. He increased the paid out to 5 ‘duit’ for each catch. But still, thousands of rats have been brought in everyday.

Subsequently, Farquhar ordered to dig a deep trench to bury those dead bodies.

The number of rats brought in dwindled until 10 or 20 rats a day.

Not long after, centipedes struck. A number of centipedes attacked people who living on the riverbank. Again, Colonel Farquhar offered 1 ‘Wang’ for every brought in. Hundreds of catches been brought in everyday, until the number descended to 20 or 30 centipedes for 2 or 3 days. Finally, the cleaning up campaign came to the end.

The Malay hawker has no idea how to make a burger, as Hamburger was not a local cuisine. But he ingeniously managed to substitute the meat to minced mutton and slices of onion in between the French loaf, and dipped the whole bread in the beaten eggs and pan-fried it.